It is known in the art to produce a display panel in the form of a planar piece of glass with any geometric perimeter configuration and with a visual pattern printed on or affixed to the underside of the glass piece. The visual pattern may include artwork, text, or other information to be conspicuously displayed. Generally, the display panels can be placed on the tops of tables or other surfaces for protection of the surfaces, for providing easily cleaned surfaces, and for providing an aesthetically pleasing display of the visual pattern.
In order to produce a display panel in the conventional art, the visual pattern is first derived and then photographed to produce a photograph positive at generally the same size as the provided visual pattern. The photograph positive is then used to create a silk screen having numerous meshes, usually about 40 to 45 per inch. The silk screen is essentially a negative of the pattern. Next, using the silk screen, the artwork pattern is printed onto the underside of the glass piece.
The process of silk screening is a stenciling process in which ink or paint are forced through the meshes of the silk screen and onto a surface leaving the silk screen pattern on the surface. There are essentially two known techniques for silk screening artwork patterns onto glass utilizing different types of ink. In a first technique, an image is screened onto the glass, one color at a time, and then the glass is passed through a drying oven after each color is applied. While this method has certain advantages, it does not produce a permanent image, in that the image can be removed by an abrasive action or the image can be faded by ultraviolet (UV) light or the like.
In another silk screening technique, ceramic inks are utilized to print artwork on the glass. After all colors of the image have been silk screened onto the glass and dried, the glass is passed through a tempering oven, where the ceramic inks are fired into the glass and actually become an integral part of the glass. In the foregoing technique, the ceramic inks become a durable coating layer of the glass and are totally resistant to UV degradation, abrasion, peeling, or chemical attack. For these reasons, the foregoing technique is better suited for the fabrication of display panels as described hereinabove.
Although fabrication of display panels having silk-screened visual patterns is well known in the art, creation of some visual patterns on the display panel has been problematic and elusive. For example, creation of high quality marble and leather patterns on large display panels, perhaps greater than 18 inches on a side, has traditionally been unrealized due to the inherent complex features and varying requisite color shades (grey scale). Some years ago, Pittsburgh Paint & Glass (PPG) Industries, Inc. of Pittsburgh, Pa., U.S.A., unsuccessfully attempted to produce and market a display panel having a marble and granite pattern. However, the pattern was of extreme low quality in that it lacked the warmth, depth, and flow patterns normally found in natural marble and granite. The PPG marble pattern exhibited sharp, distinct contrasting line separations between colors, rather than smooth color transitions found in natural stones, and generally looked like a cheap imitation. Consequently, PPG was forced to remove the product from the market.
Thus, a heretofore unaddressed need exists in the industry for a low cost graphic design technique which can be used to produce a large, realistic, digitized, high fidelity, visual pattern, for example, a marble or leather pattern, in a glass display panel.